We recently had a wonderful walk up in the mountains around Shönfeld. We wanted to get high enough to see if you could walk over the highest ridge into the neighbouringvalleyof Karner Alm.
Which we did. On the way, the flowers and views were incredible, we found an abandoned farmhouse which we were re-designing, until we found a huge crack down the wall, subsidence!
We knew there was thunder predicted so didn’t linger for long, and we’d been in the Josef Mehrl Hutt when the storm hit with hailstones and lightning. In half an hour it was gone and we went home.
Our only frustration is Austrian Maps. They are useless after the Ordnance Survey of England. They don’t mark power lines, or when logging paths have been put in. Quite often, such as we found along the ridges there must be a path of sorts as we found old paint marks on rocks. There are crosses on all the summits in the area, so there must be ways there, but no markings on map or ground. We found what could have been old Alm huts but they were round –ideas on the map? Not a hope. When it is a proper way, the stripey paint is excellent, but the ways signs giving distances must have been paced alternately by a sprinter then an OAP with a wooden leg, they rarely tally up. Maybe I need to get a Smart phone and get a sat nav thingey…………
